Happy Thanksgiving

In honor of the Thanksgiving festivities, I give you the single greatest blog post ever written about this fine day, Big Daddy Drew's Turkey Day Itinerary from Kissing Suzy Kolber. It's a few years old, but as you can see, it hasn't aged a day.

I will now return my attentions to the bacon/apple/fennel stuffing. Enjoy your day.

It's Raining!

Holy fucking shit, it's raining! Call out the National Guard. LA's going to be a mess tomorrow.

This is Hot

I know I've got this thing for raw meat, but there's something else that's jumping out at me about this photo. Can you guess what it is?


Photo is by Mario Testino. I found it on this blog, which is so photo porn-ish, I can barely stand to look at it. I recommend that you do.

The New York Times is Stealing My Material

Sure, now they're all about Justin Bobby. (I gotta say, that is an insanely stupid look he's rocking in that photo.)

Happy Birthday, Andrew Carnegie

He was a wee lad, and he owned the world.

My Fair Share of Abuse

I went to the rally in favor of gay marriage at Los Angeles City Hall this past Saturday. The Metro was packed heading down, full of people carrying signs, people cheering. Each station, we picked up more and more people, the energy level constantly rising. Once we reached Civic Center station, the crowd exited, en mass, and trudged upward to the light of a hot Los Angeles day. One of the speakers at the rally said, "It's November in Los Angeles, which means it's 700 degrees." She wasn't far off. It was hot. It was unbearable in the sun, but the shade was alright, and nobody seemed to mind that I was sweating like Jason Giambi. It was that kind of crowd.

People spoke: Ricki Lake, Lucy Lawless, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo (Edan shouted "Take down those damn electronic billboards!"). I was surprised to find myself tearing up as people (not Lucy Lawless, who made that Xena noise) spoke about how important the issue is and how much it meant to them personally. I thought about all the people I know who are affected by the passing of Prop 8, and, well, I was glad I was wearing sunglasses. I saw Pink standing in the crowd. Everywhere people were holding signs. Some people had brought their kids. Some had brought their dogs, which just seemed cruel.

After about forty minutes of speakers, we started to march. This is what the crowd had come for, but it felt a little anti-climactic. Downtown LA isn't the most happening place on a Monday morning, let alone a Saturday morning. There weren't that many people out to see us, and those that were were definitely part of the choir, so to speak. Still, it felt important to be there, to be counted.

Anyway, I know this isn't my usual type of blog post (I'll write something about Kim Kardashian tomorrow to make up for it), but I did take some photos that I think are interesting. They are below.

If only we had this kind of a crowd on the Metro everyday. They might actually build some more lines.

The heavenly glow of Downtown Los Angeles (plus that guy's sweet paisley hat).


Indeed.


On the march.


This doesn't really have anything to do with the rally or gay rights, just, you know, No Age Weirdo Rippers.

Post-Election Wrap-Up

Fans of my long defunct food blog Apron, Napkin probably remember this feeling. "Patrick's run off, and we aren't likely to hear from him ever again." It's true, I've been known to be intermittent with my blogging, but it isn't because I don't have ideas. It's that I'm lazy. Very, very lazy. And occasionally too drunk to blog (That was the title of the now-scrapped Dead Kennedys reunion album).

I did have a few post-election thoughts to pass along:

• McCain-Palin lost, in part because they were the inferior ticket, in part because nobody who shared political parties with Bush (or really anything with Bush) would've had much of a shot, and in part because they were the party of Speidi.
  

• As a Californian, I'm pretty ashamed that we voted to pass a constitutional amendment specifically to take away certain people's rights. In fact, I'm very angry about this. What you are reading right now is me holding my temper. If this weren't a blog, I might see cause to raise my voice at certain religious types who believe in magic underwear and marrying multiple people at the same time and converting Jews after they're already dead. I might say something like, "While I'm not completely sure that God doesn't exist (I'm about 99% of the way there), I am damn sure that if he does exist, he didn't bury any sacred texts in Upstate New York." Have you ever been to Palmyra? There is nothing sacred about that shithole. So you can take your magic seeing goggles and your sacred texts and your enchanted salamanders and your prairie garb and go back to that alkaline flat of a state you call home. Anyway, this just proves that certain things are too important to be left up to the people to decide. One of the many reasons I really dislike the Californian form of government. (In all fairness, I should point out that Speidi were against Prop 8. No idea how they felt about that high-speed train we're building.)

• Speaking of the high-speed rail: "But Main Street's still all cracked and broken!" "Sorry, Marge, the mob has spoken." Monorail!
  

• Can we all agree now: Sarah Palin wasn't that hot. I mean, I know at least ten moms who are way hotter than her (and whose politics I can tolerate a lot more). I swear that liberal guys have this thing for conservative women, that they want to be attracted to the hate they feel or something. Repulsion confused with desire. Ann Coulter's been trying to make a career of it now for about a decade, except that she's not attractive.

• If I were Michelle Obama, I wouldn't let Oprah Winfrey anywhere near 44. Did you see the way she was looking at him during the speech?

• Can we all take a minute to worship at the feet of the amazing Nate Silver. Turns out PECOTA is pretty good with elections, too, although he did have Dustin Pedroia winning the state of Massachusetts (If you got any of these reference, it's time to pack up and move out of your mom's basement). Is it any wonder he's a University of Chicago grad?

Okay, so, I'll see you in, what, a month and a half or so? Well, I'll try to make it a more regular thing.